


Extremity

by Arya_Greenleaf



Series: Kylux Guro Challenge [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: 33 Day Guro Challenge, Amputation, Blood and Injury, Guro, Hallucinations, Kissing, M/M, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Psychotropic Drugs, Torture, Truth Serum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-23 22:40:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7482690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arya_Greenleaf/pseuds/Arya_Greenleaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When General Hux is captured by an unknown entity--the Resistance claiming no knowledge of his abduction--it's up to Ren to find and bring him back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Extremity

**Author's Note:**

> In the interest of being perfectly up-front, Hux is going to lose some fingers in dramatic fashion at the hands of a Galactic Ramsay Bolton. 
> 
> He also hallucinates a bit and feels like there's bugs under his skin. I don't want anyone to be needlessly freaked out but I wasn't sure how the hell to tag for it.

Tapping into the Force surrounding and flowing through Hux was like running headlong into a durasteel wall. His head split open and bits of him crunched and splattered and spilled.

Everything felt close and acute—he _felt_ everything.

Kylo’s skin grew clammy and tight. His hairline prickled with sweat and the stale taste of it lingered on his lips and tongue. He gripped the controls of the shuttle hard, pressing his face into the cool, sleek console as his stomach flipped and convulsed.

His hands shook as he fought for control, his breath coming in sharp, short bursts that made his chest burn and his head swim. He raised his head slowly, easing the thrust open to build up to light speed as he did, locking his gaze on a pinprick of light in the distance.

 

***

 

Hux had lost control of his body some hours ago.

He hardly had the strength left to acknowledge the fact that he was exhausted, let alone attempt to keep himself from trembling. The tremors wracked his body from tip to tail, a fine string of bloodied saliva dropped from the corner of his mouth as he smiled—or some approximation thereof—thankful for the interrogation chair he was strapped to for holding him up when he knew he couldn’t trust himself to have the ability.

Everything was just a bit too bright and a bit too clear with the lights overhead turned all the way up to one-hundred-percent. The air in the room was stifling and the smell of his own body was overwhelming. His clothes, tatters that they were, clung to him with dampness that refused to recede—sweat, piss, the icy water they’d doused him with to rouse him the last time he’d slipped from consciousness.

His shaking grew more violent, the rattling of his restraints almost as deafening as his own ragged breathing.

 

* * *

 

It should have been a very standard meeting.

A contact on the Outer Rim had relayed some intelligence—a Resistance squadron in the area. Hux had asked to be kept abreast of the situation, curious as to what had sent them so far from the core. Soon enough, his contact claimed to have taken the squadron leader hostage. Hux would have to act quickly, the others would come back with aid and his contact didn’t have the capability to hold more of an attack off.

Hux left without thinking.

He’d been distracted and angry, unable to grasp the threads of his own constancy in the wake of the destruction of _Starkiller_. Snoke had been quiet—too quiet—and Hux had felt it like a slap across the face; like a child being scolded and told how useless he was, how grand his failures were. He’d insisted that Phasma and her unit stay behind. He would be in and out, collecting whatever information or prisoners were necessary on his own, he would go unnoticed as a single person travelling in the lonely reaches of the system rather than as a commander with a fleet at his elbow.

When he’d arrived on-planet, so insignificant a place that it barely warranted a numerical designation let alone a name all its own, he’d realized his folly almost instantly.

They hadn’t even bothered to attempt to conceal the First Order command shuttle that they’d arrived in at the edge of the thick forest surrounding the warehouse outpost that Hux’s contact tended to. The humanoid who fed him information had been dispatched almost mercifully, a single blaster-shot to the head left him crumpled on the floor in the threshold.

It had taken Hux a moment to recognize his captors. Blinded by the dark hood thrust down over his head and yanked tight around his neck, Hux kicked and clawed, his extremities seeking purchase against whatever solid thing they could find. The trio of them grunted and hissed and swore as they wrestled him to the ground and wrenched his arms behind his back. Cold, half-congealed blood from the fatal wound incurred hours before he’d arrived soaked into the hood and smeared against Hux’s lips and cheek as they pressed him to the floor. A sharp kick from a high-polished boot distracted Hux just enough to allow them to slap a set of binders on his wrists and ankles. Thrashing, they hauled him up off the ground and deeper into the warehouse.

“You’ve made a mockery of us!”

Hux let his head twist with the back-handed strike. The chair they’d strapped him into was practically an antique. He’d nearly laughed when he thought of the Jedi who had probably met their ends in similar fashion at the hands of the Imperial Inquisitors—and now he’d share their fate at the whims of his own fellow officers.

Hux spat out pink-tinged saliva and turned his head back once more, staying resolutely silent.

“It should have been the end of the Republic!”

The back of the Colonel’s hand met his cheek again, the force of it sharp enough to break the skin after so many strikes. Hux could feel his face growing tight and hot with the swelling under the ugly bruise he was sure he had developed.

There were a trio of them. Hux studied each one of them while they railed at him—lashing out with tongue and fist in equal measures. He couldn’t place any of them in his short mental inventory of personal acquaintances, but they all seemed vaguely familiar. He supposed that was a hazard of the uniformity of military dress and the isolation of leading life on a Star Destroyer.

The Colonel had dark hair, a shock of white nestled in the curls over his left temple. He had a cruel mouth and a wide nose and far too much of a fondness for that back-handed slap.

The Major was a rodent-like man with beady eyes and shining, oily skin. His belt seemed to only just close about his waist, though he was still within regulation weight even if he was pushing the limits.

The General had been silent until then. Hux judged her to be at least twenty years his senior, though he imagined she might be a bit younger, her age masked by her severe look.

“Enough,” she said quietly. Hux wondered which of the fleet was missing its commander, which could afford that luxury in the wake of the destruction of _Starkiller_ and the Order’s frenzied attempt to reorganize its ranks and respond to the offense. The Colonel slapped Hux again and he spat out blood, taking just a bit of pleasure in the splatter of it across the toes of the Colonel’s highly polished shoes. “I said, _enough_.”

Hux struggled to recall the General’s name and the cowards had been careful thus far not to address each other directly. She stepped up close to him, bringing her face within several inches of his. If Hux stretched forward just a bit, he could have snapped his teeth against her nose.

“Where is that disgrace of a Sith Lord?”

Hux did laugh then. “Don’t let him hear you calling him that.”

The General barely reacted. “Where is he?”

“With his Master and the rest of his ilk. Is that why you’ve killed my informer and lured me here? You hoped he’d come tagging along like some trained hound?”

“I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t close to the truth.”

Hux’s lip curled in disgust. “Do you think any of you would still have breath in your breast if he were here? Are you not aware of the power that man wields? Do you think you could contain him?”

“I imagine even a Force user—if that’s what he truly is, of course—wouldn’t be very effective against a well-placed blaster. No more so than your late informer was.” She took a step back.

“What exactly are your intentions, _General_?”

The woman made an exaggerated expression of offense. She took a deep, pensive breath and brushed invisible dirt off of the sleeve of her jacket. “I intended to retaliate against the two of you in the best way I know how. But considering I only have you at my disposal, I can keep you conscious long enough to satisfy the desire to punish two.”

“Punish? For what?”

“For _Starkiller_. For letting the Resistance see a very distinctive chink in the Order’s armor—a lapse in the judgement of our _esteemed_ Supreme Leader, allowing that hound, as you call him, to interact directly with them. He’s clearly too volatile. At least Vader knew his place.” The General pursed her lips and folded her hands behind her back, pacing in short strides as she continued, her expressive brows working in tandem with the cadence of her speech. “I suppose though, _punishment_ really isn’t what I want. Revenge, that might be a better word. You see, Hux, I am an ambitious woman. I always have been. The Order has only ever been a means to an end for me. When you destroyed the Hosnian system, even setting aside the massive victory that you allowed the Resistance to have afterward, you effectively undid years of work.”

“Who’s work?”

“Mine. I had several agents on Hosnian Prime. They were in the middle of negotiations with a few rather influential Republicans who intended to throw their support behind me when I split from the Order and took my men and my ships with me. And now they, and their support, are gone. Now, _dear_ Hux, I am forced to make a choice: begin again, or abandon my ambitions.”

The General stopped pacing and stood squarely in front of Hux once more.

“I am not willing to do either. I think that by the time we’re finished here, _you_ will be rushing to back me. If I decide to let you leave here with your life and general faculties, of course.”

Hux’s mind raced. What she was describing was treason—and it seemed like she had been dangerously close to enacting whatever she’d planned before the Hosnian system fell. It wasn’t lost on Hux, however, that in his current position he could do little to nothing about it.

“And what if I agreed to support you now? No questions asked. You call and I, the _Finalizer_ and my Stormtroopers, will follow.”

“Oh, Hux,” by now it was obvious that she was very purposefully addressing him without the respect of his rank, the familiarity aimed at unnerving him. “Don’t make it that easy for me. What fun is there in that?”

“What are you planning to do then, hmm? Let him slap me until I cry?” He jerked his chin toward the Colonel.

The General laughed, a soft, breathy sound that might have been attractive in any other circumstance. “No, Hux, not at all. I’m simply going to make it very difficult for you to be tempted to contradict me when the time comes.”

 

***

 

The Bavo Six she injected him with had obviously been cheaply made, the effects came in lazy drags. The edges of things had become distorted. Shapes expanded and contracted. The shadows of the warehouse stretched toward him in increasingly terrifying tendrils. The voices of his captors became shrill and then low and booming in turns. Colors danced through his vision and every sound from the scuff of boots to the hum of the building’s power supply echoed in his ears like his own voice across the parade yard at _Starkiller_ Base.

“You’re a useless slip of a man, Hux. I can’t imagine how you’ve made it as far as you have—especially so young.”

The General nodded and the Major thumbed at the control console a few paces off. White-hot electricity coursed through Hux’s body for several long seconds. When it stopped, his muscles jumping and his ears ringing loudly, Hux forced himself to focus on the General’s increasingly twisted features. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear the vision and failing. “You—y—you must’ve spoken to my father.”

“Look at that, no more stiff upper lip.” She smiled over her shoulder at the Major. “I do love it when they finally start talking freely—none of that bullshit bravado.”

The General had shucked off her uniform jacket by then and was standing in her regulation undershirt, suspenders framing her broad shoulders. A soft sheen of sweat clung to her arms in the unmoving, stale air of the space around them. Using Hux as a punching bag between shocks had evidently been strenuous work. She reached out and swiped her thumb against the line of Hux’s jaw, her finger coming away with bright red blood across the pad. He hadn’t even felt it when his ear-drum ruptured. She wiped it on the front of his jacket.

“Should I dose him again?”

The General considered it for a moment, walking in a circle around the interrogation chair. “No, I don’t think that will be necessary.” She slid her hands casually into her pockets. “I’m rather parched. I think we should leave our guest to contemplate his surroundings, let the Six do its job.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She smiled at Hux, the expression deceptively softening her features. “Don’t go too far now.”

Alone, it was harder for Hux to ignore the effects of the Bavo Six. The General had given him something to focus on. Without her, the drug began to truly unravel his resolve.

He gasped as the shadows shifted, pain lancing through his chest as the intake of breath disturbed his cracked ribs. The shadows stretched, climbing up the walls and changing shape. The electric buzz of the lights overhead turned into a deafening shriek. The shadows seemed to solidify, the monstrosity crawling toward him, slapping its long-fingered limbs against the floor and dragging its body behind.

Hux broke out into a fresh sweat, squeezing his eyes shut against the sight. “No, no, nononono!”

Sweat beaded on his scalp and ran down from his hairline in lazy droplets that felt like insects crawling across his skin. Hux thrashed, heedless of his ribs and the swelling of his abused face, trying to wipe the sweat from his brow and to rub himself into the chair in an attempt to dry the rolling moisture from his back.

He laughed, his gut filling with momentary triumph when he opened his eyes to find the shadows settled back where they belonged.

The buzzing of the lights persisted, the volume fluctuating wildly until it evened out, sounding like the flocks of large cicadas that overtook the areas surrounding Hux’s childhood home on Arkanis on the rare sunny days. He curled his lip in remembering them, thinking of the unpleasant crunch of their bodies underfoot if they happened to cross one’s walking path. Hux shivered, thinking of how the overly-large insects would jump and fly, surprising and frightening him as they buzzed past his face and threatened to land right on him.

Hux’s skin began to crawl.

He shifted and rubbed, trying once more to relieve the sensation. The trouble was, it no longer felt like something _on_ his skin but rather, _under_ his skin. He was desperate to scratch at himself, to relieve the feeling.

The lights flickered and brightened, his eyes becoming over-sensitive. His chest felt tight, gripped by inordinate fear at the continued remembrance of the awful bugs on Arkanis. He cried out as the anxiety mounted, imagining them crawling out from under the shelving and jumping out of boxes and jars that lined the walls of the warehouse and framed the space that held the interrogation chair.

He pressed his ear, aching from the ruptured drum, into his shoulder, terrified that one might land on him and crawl inside.

“Help,” he whispered. “Please, I don’t like them, _please_.”

_Weak-willed, sniveling little shit._

“No, no I’m not—I just don’t like them, please!”

_I can’t believe I ever thought you might amount to anything. Worthless coward—afraid of something that’s not even there._

“I’m not afraid!”

 _Yes, you are_.

“No! No! No! No!”

Hux repeated it like a mantra, shouting it to drown out the taunting, refusing to acknowledge the familiarity of the voice, until his speech fell into a full-blown scream.

Hux gasped and choked in shock at the sharp slap across his face. His vision snapped into clarity around the General’s face hovering in front of him. She reached out, stroking his cheek with frightening tenderness. “Why are you screaming?”

“The—them. The bugs—they—they’re everywhere.”

The General looked around, alarm on her face. “Everywhere? I don’t see them.”

“They’re hiding. They’ll come out. They’ll—“

“Do you think,” she dropped her voice to a whisper. “Do you think they’re hiding close by?”

Hux nodded, his gut twisting in anticipation. He _itched._

“Where?”

Hux pressed his lips shut, fearing if he said it out loud that would make it true.

The General traced the center seam of his jacket with her index finger. “Here?”

Hux let out a shaking sob and squeezed his eyes shut, embarrassed tears rolling down over his cheeks.

 _Pathetic_.

“Make it stop, please.”

“Well, we’ll have to get this off of you then—so they can escape, won’t we?

Hux nodded. His belt buckle fell, the sharp corner of it banging against his thigh where it dangled, trapped around his waist where he was pressed into the interrogation chair. The General’s fingers moved roughly around his neck, seeking purchase and yanking the button under the flap of his collar open, sending it pinging across the floor. His zip was yanked down and his jacket shoved open.

“Oh, no, I don’t see them. They must be underneath here.” The General traced the neckline of his undershirt, identical to her own.

“Please, _please_ just get them off.” The buzzing swelled once more, nearly covering the sound of fabric ripping.

“Hux, I still don’t see anything.” There was a wicked kind of amusement in her voice until it dropped. “Do you think—no, that couldn’t possibly be it.”

Hux opened his eyes slowly, looking down at himself—his pale torso mottled with bruising and framed by his ruined uniform. He shook with relief when he didn’t see the distinctive shapes of the cicadas crawling just under the surface of his skin.

“Hux.”

He was vaguely aware that someone was calling his name. He strained against the bindings holding his arms in place, trying to touch his skin, wondering if it felt as hot and painful to the touch as it looked and felt. The angry reds and blacks splashed against his pale flesh made him think of the unforgiving darkness of space—the void where the Hosnian system once was.

“ _Hux_.”

He dragged his attention away from his bared torso to look the General in the eye—or where he thought her eye might be. He sagged forward against his restraints, a wave of heat and exhaustion rolling over him.

The General gestured somewhere behind herself and Hux braced for whatever was next. His body tingled with soft but uncomfortable pulses, as if he’d touched a live outlet with damp hands.

“Tell me something, Hux.”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“If you ask me _nicely_.” The retort earned him a sharp slap, mercifully on his less-abused cheek. Hux laughed, breathy and tight, waiting.

“Did you even press the button yourself? Or did you just give the order?”

“I gave the order.”

The General frowned, her brow creasing unattractively. “That’s a shame.” She shifted fractions closer and grabbed his hand roughly, bending his fingers back. Hux gritted his teeth against the sharp pain. “It would have been so satisfying to take the bit of you that took so much from me.” She took a deep breath as if to calm herself, her lip curling in disgust. “Colonel, the vibro, please.”

She held out her hand, releasing his fingers, and waited for the compact vibroblade to be placed in her palm. Hux’s eyes widened when she cupped his face, thumb digging hard into his jaw and pressing the inside of his cheek into his teeth.

“I suppose I could still do that, take from you what took from me.” She smiled. “It would be rather nice to know I’d never have to hear another of your pompous orations again.” Hux swallowed and pressed his lips into a hard line. The room was beginning to spin. He felt as though he was falling through the fabric of things, sweating with renewed vigor as the Bavo Six seemed to gain a second wind in his system. “Tongues are so messy, though. And I do suppose you can’t very well continue to command your ship in an effective manner if you can’t speak clearly.” She paused, squeezing tighter. “And I will still require you to be effective while I rearrange my plans.”

The General released Hux’s face and surveyed him for a moment. Hux focused on her nose, unwilling to look away but too anxious to meet her eyes—damn them and damn their serum.

She smiled in that frighteningly soft way once more. “Which is your dominant hand?”

Hux closed his eyes and took a breath, trying to steady himself. “I am sufficiently ambidextrous.”

“Well then, which one do you fuck into when your _hound_ isn’t within reach? I’ll let you keep that one.”

Panic washed over him, making his face flush dark and his heart throb faster in his chest.

 

* * *

 

Kylo’s head rang with static, the pressure inside his skull painful to the point of distraction. The Knight he was sparring against landed a hard strike to his chest, knocking the air from his lungs. He stumbled back, choking and gasping.

“Pay attention!” The Knight wrenched off his mask, the grid pattern flashing in the blazing sunlight.

Kylo fought the wave of nausea that flipped his stomach over and made bile burn up the back of his throat. “I yield—I yield!” He held up a hand in surrender and braced the other against his knee. “I yield.”

The Knight approached, grabbing Kylo roughly by the chin. He hissed, the burned skin there still tender and healing, and gritted his teeth. “You dare handle the Master of the Knights of Ren in such a manner?” He wrenched his face away, doing more damage than he likely would have otherwise.

The Knight brushed it off casually. “I have been of the Ren longer than you have been alive, boy. You may be _Master_ , but you have much to learn. What have you seen?”

Kylo paced trying to get control of himself once more, finding it impossible to push away the pain in his head and dancing down his left arm and setting his fingers on fire. “I see nothing. I feel it.”

“Be still.” The Knight put a rough hand on Kylo’s shoulder, forcing him to stop. “Focus on it. If you feel it so strongly then it must be explored. There is a reason you are feeling it.”

Kylo ground his teeth and screwed his eyes shut. “I am _tired_ of this. Killing Solo should have put an end to it!” He tried to pull away once again.

“Be still, boy.” The Knight pressed his forehead to Kylo’s even as he struggled. “This is not the Light.” He took a step back, a bewildered look on his face. “This is… connection. Attachment. Much stronger.”

Kylo’s expression twisted with consternation. “Hux?”

The Knight shrugged. “Meditate on it. It is your connection, not mine.” He strode away, shouting toward the open door of the sprawling structure the Knights of Ren had made their home.

Kylo sank to his knees, suddenly weak. He took a shuddering breath and let it out slowly. Changing tactics, rather than pushing the overwhelming sensations he was experiencing away, he pushed into them and allowed them to fully wash over him.

He lurched forward, bracing his palms against the rain-soft ground. “Why—why would he walk into that?”

Kylo threw open the doors to the chamber Snoke received the Ren in, stalking forward and stopping abruptly in front of his Master, bowing his head. “Supreme Leader, I must— _ah_ —I must go. Ge-General Hux, he—“

“Has been taken by someone within our ranks. Someone disloyal.”

“Yes, Supre-e-me Leader.”

“Go. Deal with them.”

“And if Hux—“ Kylo clenched his left hand closed tightly against the pain. “If he—“

“Is not alive when you reach him?” Kylo nodded, not trusting his tongue. Snoke waved a hand dismissively. “Take the shuttle you arrived in. Report immediately back here.”

“Yes, Supreme Leader.”

 

* * *

 

“Are they looking for him yet?”

“Yes, General.”

“What’s the chatter like?”

“Chief Petty Officer Unamo has gone as far as to open a line of neutral communication with the Resistance. They, of course, are denying knowledge of his whereabouts. The _Finalizer_ doubts the validity of their claims.”

The General smiled, “Good.” She turned back, wiping her brow with the back of her hand, leaving a bright smear of blood across it. “Still with me, Hux?”

His vision blurred and searing pain ripped up from his bloodied left hand and the place where his ring finger had once been as the General cauterized the wound with some tool she’d produced in the midst of Hux’s delirium. She patted his face gently bringing the smell of charred flesh up toward his nose. Hux pressed his lips together and tried to focus on not becoming ill.

“We’ll give him another dose before we strand the shuttle in the Mid Rim. There’s a resistance outpost a few parsecs from where my supply rendezvous is waiting.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The General lowered her face, putting herself eye-to-eye with Hux. He blinked away a drop of salty sweat and held her gaze. “On second thought, give it to him now. A heavy dose—put him out.” She glanced to the side. “Burn _those_ ,” She smiled wolfishly. “Then get him loaded in the shuttle and hose this thing down. I don’t want any evidence that we’ve been here left. He doesn’t behave, I want plausible deniability.”

“Of course, ma’am.”

Hux didn’t have the energy left to attempt to resist when the Major pressed the syringe of Bavo Six into the crook of his arm.

Time and defined boundaries and shapes lost meaning. The sharp tap of regulation boots against the permacrete floor echoed as if an entire legion of troopers was marching through the room. Hux tried to relax into the embrace of the Bavo Six, reminding himself that his ordeal was nearly over.

When he heard the screaming, he assumed it was in his own head—the cicadas had mutated into something terrifying and astounding.

“Where?” someone shouted. The voice carried through the warehouse, bouncing off of permacrete and durasteel, distorted and mechanical. Hux drifted, the source and the reason irrelevant. He was going to be dumped somewhere in the Mid Rim. Hopefully they wouldn’t disable his comm channel or the emergency beacon. Maybe the Order would find him before the Resistance did. Maybe in the familiar environment of the shuttle the effects of the Bavo Six would be less severe.

Something crashed into the shelving a few feet away. Boxes and canisters fell to the floor, their contents scattering and rolling. The Major stumbled into Hux’s limited field of vision, shouting and swearing. “General!”

He rushed forward, hollering and brandishing the vibroblade. After several strides, he soared backward through the air and hit the far wall hard. Falling, he slumped in a broken heap on the floor.

The General appeared, her uniform put together and impeccable once more, her face and hands clean of the gore they’d become covered with over the course of their time together. She raised her blaster, gripping it with both hands to stabilize the shot. “This is an exciting surprise.”

She began to fire, quick successive bolts from the blaster zooming across the room. Fear flitted across her features and she squared her stance. She was shooting forward, but the plasma charges seemed to be going anywhere but.

“No!”

The General’s eyes went wide and the atmosphere crackled, a flash of brilliant red light searing Hux’s over-sensitive eyes. Her mouth opened in shock, a scream with no sound, and she dropped to the floor bonelessly.

A dark shape stepped over the General’s body, approaching Hux with a determined stride. The face was monstrous, metallic and insect-like, splattered with dark liquid and greyish residue. Hux trembled and clenched fingers he no longer possessed, the phantom digits throbbing. “Maker take me—I can’t do this anymore, please, I—“

“Hux!”

The thing that was looming over him, crowding him with its intimidating size, seemed to know his name. It fixed something at its hip and waved a hand. In a series of clicks and hisses, the restraints holding Hux in place released. Hux fell forward, the thing gripping his elbows and holding him up.

“No! No more of this!”

Hux beat weakly at the thing’s chest, gripping the heavy fabric there with his right hand and pounding ineffectively with his left, bloodied and charred knuckles left where his fingers should have been.

“Hux, stop!”

His body stiffened, remaining upright even when the thing let go of him to reach up and touched its own head. The bug-like, metallic face lifted away. Hux sobbed openly, cursing his mind and the things the Bavo Six was doing to him.

“No!”

“Hux, please!”

The thing gathered him close even as Hux regained the ability to struggle. Hux pushed at it, battering at its imposter’s façade with his ruined hand and smearing it with blood and lymph. “No, you’re not—you’re not him—he’s not— _stop!”_

“Hux, look at me!” The thing gripped his face between its large, gloved hands, forcing him to look. “Hux—“

“Ren?”

Kylo Ren’s scarred visage split into a smile with his too-wide mouth and expressive brows. His right eye was still purpled and cloudy, the saber mark still angry and raw-looking.

“Ren.” Hux’s voice broke and Ren pressed their lips together, heedless of Hux’s hand trapped between them or his own face.

 

* * *

  

Hux sat in the medbay for several days, silent and wary of every shadow and noise.

The med-droid had worked quickly and efficiently, able to save what remained of Hux’s hand after debriding the extensive injury and spitting back a report that it should be given some time to heal before an attempt to attach any kind of cybernetic was made.

The cocktail of chemicals in the Bavo Six injection was best left to run its course, attempts to counteract the drug too likely to enhance the effects and cause greater damage to the General’s vulnerable mind.

Kylo stood, stretching his legs and pacing toward the door. He caught the arm of some passing technician, “Tell Lieutenant Mitaka to get a channel open for communication with Supreme Leader Snoke.”

“Ren,” Hux croaked, his voice sounding dry and painful. “Please don’t.”

The technician looked up at Ren who shook his head in dismissal.

“You can’t go again.” He crossed the room to sit at Hux’s bedside once more.

Hux’s face collapsed into a distressed expression. “You can’t leave me again—not until we root out the rest of them.” He flinched as the med-droid rolled into the room, flinging his heavily bandaged hand out and pressing the heel of his palm into the crook of Ren’s arm. Sweat broke out on Hux’s brow and his breathing quickened, an embarrassed flush creeping into his cheeks. He tightened his jaw and spoke through gritted teeth. “I don’t care what orders you’ve been given. I want the rest of the traitors found and I want them dead."

**Author's Note:**

> Couldn't resist an Armitage moment.
> 
> Bavo Six is a truth serum/psychotropic drug used by the Inquisitorius during the Imperial era.


End file.
